


Darkness

by Angela



Category: Banana Fish
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15063092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angela/pseuds/Angela
Summary: There is a monster inside Ash.





	Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Eiji said he'd come to love both the light and the darkness. I was thinking about that, about how you go about loving darkness, and I realized that most (possibly all) of the fics here focus nearly exclusively on Ash's light. I think it's time to see what else is inside him. <3

Darkness  
by Angela  
06-23-18

There was a monster inside Ash. He hadn’t been born with it – brutal men had put it there, pushing and twisting until Ash had no choice but to submit. Submit or shatter.

At first they used him for pleasure, and the monster grew. It grew until it could sharpen its claws on them, baring its bloody teeth. Recognizing it for what it was, they taught it to kill. Taught Ash to kill. Taught him to like it.

Eiji remembered that blood-drenched night when Ash burned Golzine’s mansion to the ground. On the staircase, flinching as Ash put a slug into a mobster’s forehead. Close enough that Eiji felt the wake of the bullet. Close enough that the scents of blood and brain matter were stronger than the acrid reek of gunpowder and smoke. Ash had looked at him, his eyes bright and a half-smile on his face. Eiji realized _he’s enjoying this._

“Did I scare you?” he’d asked, his voice raspy from smoke and yelling and Eiji was engulfed in a heat that had nothing to do with the fire that tore through the basement. His belly fluttered with an urgency that definitely wasn’t panic; Ash’s green eyes continued to smirk.

And so Eiji met the monster. He’d wanted to lick the blood from its cheek.

Ash tried to hide it, tried to shield him from the darkness that lived in him, and for a while Eiji saw only its shadows – Ash’s power. His hate and vengeance. Later, his raw hunger to live. Night after night he came home late, his hair metallic with the scent of other people’s blood. Eiji saw his face as he calculated each next move, his eyes narrowing, his focus sharp. 

Sometimes it terrified him – the monster seemed to be consuming Ash from the inside, eating a little more each night until Eiji wasn’t sure if he would ever see the dawn. The newspapers said murder. Execution. Massacre.

Other times it thrilled him – the reckless confidence, the nihilism. Ash’s lips would twist into a smile that was half a dare and some shadow in Eiji would rise up, rapacious, to meet him. He understood that the darkness concealed them. Protected them.

There was a monster inside Ash.

Eiji thought it was beautiful.


End file.
